Pope’s Universal Prayer Intention for January 2014

Vatican City, 31 December 2013: Economic Development. That all may promote authentic economic development that respects the dignity of all peoples.
Do you approach the new calendar year with hope—or with fear? Will this year be better for you than last—or worse? Will it be a year of health and wealth—or of illness and want?
Pope Francis hopes that this will be a year when all people will work together to promote authentic economic development. Authentic economic development respects the dignity of all people—including the desperately poor. Because God created humanity in his own image, every life is sacred. Every person, from conception to natural death, deserves to be treated with reverence. In this way we respect that person’s dignity.
What is authentic development? Pope Francis wrote: “Development cannot be reduced to economic growth alone…. A better world will come about only if attention is first paid to individuals.” This attention must take “account of every dimension of the person, including the spiritual.”
Pope Francis sees that the “worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money” which puts making money ahead of people. “Concealed behind this attitude is a rejection of ethics, a rejection of God. Money has to serve, not to rule!”
The universal intention this month challenges us to examine ourselves and our choices, for as the Holy Father declared: “The Pope appeals for disinterested solidarity and for a return to person-centered ethics in the world of finance and economics.”
Let us pray with him for person-centered economic development throughout the world.
Source: VR Sedoc